Tag Archives: broken bells

The much-talked about Rome collaboration between super-producer/Broken Bells and Gnarls Barkley member Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi is due out in May, and the responsible parties -- those two co-conspirators and singers Jack White and Norah Jones -- shared some more detail about the project's origins via video as they ramp up toward its release.

Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Brian Burton, talks about how he came across Nashville-based rock Renaissance Man White -- the two met while Burton was on tour, and kept in touch over the years.

"I always had the intention of there being a male and a female singer (for the Rome project), and so Daniel and I talked about it and we thought Jack would be great, actually," Burton says.

White shares some insight into the different approach he took for creating vocal parts for Rome.

"I rode around in a car listening to the instrumentals, and I had a hand-held recorder and I sang whatever came to mind to all the songs," White says. "And it was the ones that spoke to me more and more as I kept driving around and I (found) phrases that meant something to me and vocal melodies that meant something, and built it up that way."

The video also provides a few snippets of the music, which drew inspiration from classic Italian film music and Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores.

"It's definitely very melancholy," Burton says of the set. "It's an album about love I guess."

Colbert Report viewers caught an epic battle Tuesday night between Grammy nominees and new Nashvillians the Black Keys and singer Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, whose band is up against the keys in the Grammys' best alternative music album category.

Host Stephen Colbert asks the Keys' Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney to engage in something of a sellout-off with Koenig -- and both bands sure have scored a bunch of commercials -- the winner earning his alternative music album Grammy vote. Hand weapons and hilarity ensue.

Watch Colbert and his musician guests square off in the above video.

The Black Keys and Vampire Weekend find out whether they take that trophy (they're also up against Band of Horses, Arcade Fire and Broken Bells) on Sun., Feb. 13, when Los Angeles' STAPLES Center hosts the Grammy Awards show. (It also airs live on CBS at 7 p.m. Central.)